Piers Morgan: Guns should remain an issue

NEW YORK, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- CNN talk show host Piers Morgan said Thursday that he wants to help keep the debate on gun control alive in the United States.

In an interview on the CBS show "This Morning," Morgan explained why "Guns in America" has been the major theme on "Piers Morgan Tonight."

"How many more kids have to die, before you guys say, 'We want less guns, not more?'" he asked.

Morgan is a British citizen whose career has included a stint as the editor of the now-defunct Sunday tabloid News of the World. He was fired from the Daily Mirror after running photographs of British soldiers abusing Iraqis that turned out to be fake.

His position on gun control has earned him a petition on a White House site calling for his deportation. More than 100,000 people have signed it.

Morgan said that after the 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., that killed six people and critically injured then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., there was a "week of horror and mourning" and then the killings faded away. But he said the deaths of 20 children and six staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December might be a "tipping point."

The kind of strict controls imposed in Britain after the 1996 Dunblane school massacre in Scotland might not win support in the United States, Morgan said. He also said he respects U.S. citizens' right to protect themselves in their homes.

"This debate must be heard loud and clear," he said, adding, "I just don't believe that the majority of decent civilized Americans do not share my view that something has to give."